“But here I am at this moment, a thirty-four-year-old geek, and against my will and against my reason (although, okay, not against my character), I still want that fucking Cinderella story for myself.More than an amazing, no-one-else-on-the-planet-knows-this secret.More than anything else.I want that happily-ever-after ending I imagined, as a teen, I’d get someday. That daydream I held on to as my prize for surviving those sucky years of adolescence.Dammit, I deserve that ending.It’s just that, if I’m truly honest with myself, I can no longer tell if it’s Sam, specifically, I want or if it’s the nearly two-decade-old fantasy featuring him as the heroic lead.So, at the last second, I cop out.”

“The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.”

“I want my last 50 years on this earth to be amazing. Of course, I still want to have 150 years before those last 50 years begin.”

“I’m scared of him. I’m disgusted by the vile monster he becomes, this beast he lets out. But I still love him. I’d still do anything for him. I can’t just turn off my heart. I want to, I do, but I can’t. I love him with everything I have and I hate myself for it. Because it’s wrong to love him, I know. It’s so wrong.”

“It is two years since I emerged from depression and I no longer want myself dead. I want myself alive. I am no longer my own enemy. Depression is the enemy. The monster lives at my gate. My hope is that, with sufficient effort and luck, I can keep it there.”

“I want to live for a very, very long time, but it’s important that I take care of my body. When I am 851 years old, I don’t want to look it. No, I want to look 158.”